


Almost-Lover

by germanjj



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Peterick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 00:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13799466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanjj/pseuds/germanjj
Summary: One night, Pete doesn't listen to the warning bells inside his head.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Dipping my toes back into writing after years, and into a new fandom. As always, this is RPF, don't like, don't read. It's for entertainment purposes only and not meant to imply anything or offend anyone.
> 
> English is not my first language. This story is not beta'd.

Patrick’s laughter bounces off the walls in the hallway and Pete makes sure to push him into the elevator before angry guests can open their hotel room doors and start shouting at them.

He giggles into Patrick’s shoulder when he collapses against him.

“Why are you pushing me?” Patrick asks incredulously, his face open and happy and _beautiful_ , Pete thinks.

“It’s four in the morning, dude.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Patrick grins up at him, his cheeks tinted red. Pete’s not sure if it comes from the alcohol or if he’s blushing.

They manage to keep their giggling to a minimum after that, exiting the elevator and making their way through the long-twisted hallway to their hotel rooms.

“You comin’ inside or going to bed?” Patrick asks him when they stop at his door. Pete’s room is just four doors down, right next to Andy’s and across from Joe’s.

Somewhere, a warning bell goes off in Pete’s head. It’s faint and old and he’s been hearing it for years at odd times. Sometimes he listens. This time he shrugs his shoulders, hears himself say “Not actually tired to be honest”, and follows Patrick into his room.

He should go to bed, he knows that. They’re playing a show in the evening and doing some press before that. They’ve been out with the whole crew to celebrate the start of the European tour and they’ve had a little too much to drink, so Pete should do the responsible thing and let them both get some rest before the next day officially started.

But he doesn’t feel like it tonight. In fact, he’s been off all day, feeling a familiar tingle run down his spine and worry at the top of his neck. He feels his eyes drawn to Patrick more than usual and although that’s nothing new, he knows he’s two steps away from dangerous territory.

“I wanted to show you the bridge I’ve been telling you about,” Patrick informs him excitedly, already rummaging around on the bed, plugging his laptop in.

Pete closes the door behind him and leans against it, watching Patrick’s fingers dance on the keyboard, his tongue sticking out between his lips in concentration.

Pete’s throat is suddenly dry and his heart speeding up in his chest.

It’s not the first time he’s been at this point but all the other times before he had laughed it off, shrugged it away as something that just happened to him from time to time and didn’t really mean anything. He would find himself attracted to his bandmates sometimes. Par for the course.

But then Patrick looks up at him, still smiling the happiest smile, the one he only got when he was really happy or really drunk, and Pete just… doesn’t feel like backing down this time.

The warning bell grows louder.

“What?” Patrick asks him. “You’re looking at me funny.”

“Nothing,” Pete laughs, burying his hands in his jean pockets as if that is stopping him to do anything stupid.

“Oh wait,” Patrick hurdles off the bed, his mind already jumping back to the music and Pete bites down on his bottom lip. He can’t do this. He really shouldn’t this. But he really, really wants to.

“Hey, Patrick,” he asks, and the words come out rougher than he intended. “How drunk are you?”

Patrick actually stops in his tracks and huffs. “I was drunk like five hours ago,” he says, which is not entirely true, but he sounds like he means it and that’s enough for Pete.

“Okay,” Pete pushes himself off the door. “Feel free to punch me or whatever,” he mumbles under his breath and takes the three steps to close the distance between them.

The next thing he knows is his hand flying up to Patrick’s face, cupping his cheek lightly and then he’s pressing a kiss to his friend’s lips.

The warning bell stops ringing. Everything stops. Pete’s world slows down to just this, just Patrick’s lips against his, warm and soft and unmoving.

Then Patrick inhales sharply through his nose, as if he’s just now catching up to what is happening, and Pete’s almost waiting for him to draw back and swing that punch Pete’s been offering. But Patrick doesn’t pull away. Instead, with a tiny, subtle movement, he presses closer.

And then they’re kissing. For real.

It’s slow, so very slow, a first kiss like Pete had always imagined but never really had and it feels precious and fragile between them. He feels like slow dancing on thin ice and he can hear it cracking already but there’s nothing in the world that would make him move.

He feels Patrick’s hand grab onto the hem of his shirt and he steps a little closer, revels in the warmth and feel of Patrick against him, all around him.

Minutes tick by that feel like hours while they’re learning the shape of their mouths, the give of their lips against each other, the taste of their skin.

Pete hears a gasp when his tongue slips into Patrick’s mouth and he’s not sure if it’s coming from him or from Patrick, but then Patrick pulls him closer still, and what was slow and careful turns to heated and sloppy in a matter of seconds.

Pete’s other hand finds its way to Patrick’s neck, playing with soft strands of hair, and then they’re moving, and Pete’s world is spinning.

Patrick pushes him against the wall and curves his body against him, so Pete’s spreading his legs to let the other man in, to align them from head to tow and that’s when he wakes up.

He pulls his head back and opens his eyes to find Patrick inches away from him, panting, mouth kiss-slick and eyes glassy, pupils wide.

It’s one of the single most erotic things he’s ever seen, and he tries to drink in the sight of Patrick, take it all in because there’s a dreadful feeling rising in his chest.

It’s not the want he sees in his best friend’s face that scares him. Not the want he had felt just seconds ago with their bodies pressed together like they were trying to claw their way into each other.

It’s how his lungs burn and his heart longs at the sight of Patrick, at the idea of what could be.

Patrick stumbles a few steps back just when Pete slides all the way down to the floor, the weight of what they did hitting him full force now.

“No,” Patrick whispers and Pete looks up at him, finding him with a hand covering his mouth and shaking his head, wide eyes staring down at Pete.

“No. No. No, no,” he keeps repeating.

Pete feels a lump form in his throat, burning and scratching inside of him. He gets off the floor, ungracefully trying to regain his balance, words stuck in his chest he can’t think much less dares to say.

So he leaves. Without a last look at Patrick, he fumbles for the door and he’s out. Out of the room, out of the situation, away from what he feels will be the biggest mistake of his life.


	2. Part Two

„Come on, Patrick, let me in,“ Pete whispers, his forehead pressing against the cold wood of the hotel room door. He shivers.

It is ten past two in the morning and he’s tired and cold, and yet here he is, standing in the hallway of yet another hotel in some European country that will blur in with all the others in a few weeks anyway.

His body is high strung and restless and there’s a tingling sensation in his fingers that borders on painful. He’s tried sleeping for a few hours but has given up with his thoughts running and the knot in his stomach he’s felt for days making him feel sick.

Patrick is still awake. Pete doesn’t even question it. He’s probably buried deep in some music or simply ignoring Pete’s texts by now („Pls let me in,“ was the first. And then, five minutes later „can you please open the door?“).

He’s not reacting to Pete knocking too and Pete doesn’t dare to knock any louder than he already is, doesn’t want to create a scene on top of everything.

Four days. Four days and they hadn’t had a real conversation past where they were going to eat, or anything related to the shows.

It’s not like they are shouting at each other either. No screaming or angry looks. No childish outbursts like they are both prone to do with each other.

Pete can deal with all that, can deal with the shouting. He can’t deal with silence.

Pete chuckles silently and closes his eyes when the motion activated light in the hallway turns off with a low click.

He’s had worse moments in his life, more than he cares to count, but there is something poetic about standing in an empty hallway in the middle of the night being ignored by a person you love more than most people in the world and even the hall light forgets you are there.

„Come on.“ Pete knocks again, two short, polite knocks. He’s feeling a headache coming and let’s out a deep breath.

He startles when the door finally gives and light pouring out of the room blinds him for a second.

Patrick looks up at him silently, headphones around his neck. He doesn’t look surprised, confirming that he’s probably been ignoring the texts on purpose.

He doesn’t say anything as he opens the door wide for Pete to come in, just turns around and walks back into the room.

The knot in Pete’s stomach tightens.

Patrick’s room is the usual mess. Clothes everywhere, the small desk covered in gear, food and Patrick’s toiletries.

Patrick’s laptop is on his bed and that’s where he walks back to, headphones already on his head again, as if he’s set on ignoring Pete.

But then Patrick climbs on the bed, shimmying to one side to make room for Pete and Pete can breathe a little easier.

That at least is familiar territory. They’ve done this before. Back when the nightmares would hit or sleep would escape him, and Patrick and he were fighting about whatever stupid thing they’d been butting heads over. No matter how bad it got, Patrick would always let him crawl into the bed or bunk with him, giving him the silent treatment but offering his space nonetheless.

Pete takes what he is offered. He lays flat down on the side of the bed, his head just next to where Patrick is sitting, looking up at the pristine white ceiling. The cold he’s been feeling is gone now but he’s still tired, so much his eyes are burning with it.

When he carefully turns to the side, he finds Patrick sitting cross-legged next to him, his brows furrowed in concentration, gnawing at his lower lip.

_As if he‘s forgotten I’m here_ , Pete thinks _, just like the light in the hallway_.

They don’t talk. Patrick barely makes any noise with his fingers on the keyboard. Even his headphones are turned so low that Pete can’t hear any of what Patrick is listening to.

Pete keeps looking at him, studying him. Following the swing of his nose and noticing the color of his eyelashes against the delicate skin when he blinks. Listening to the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.

More than a decade, hell – going at almost two in a few years, Pete’s been looking at this man. Growing from a scrawny, awkward kid into the person he is now. Pete finds himself trying to catalogue all the things that have changed. And everything that has stayed exactly the same.

He feels a sudden urge to reach out and hold onto Patrick, grab his hand or his knee, to steady himself and make sure that he is still there, that they are still there. In this together.

_Tell me I haven’t lost you._

But they have changed things four nights ago, inevitably changed each other and _them_ in the process.

Pete tears his eyes away and looks back up at the ceiling.

„I fucked up,“ Pete hears himself say, hoarse and painful, like the words being ripped out of him are opening up a wound that had finally started healing.

Time goes by and Pete is sure Patrick hasn’t even heard him, but then there is a rustling sound, Patrick pulling the headphones down, and then a small voice saying, „we both did.“

The pit in Pete’s stomach is catching on fire.

„Look, “ Patrick starts, still in that soft, low, barely there voice,“ it was a stupid thing. We were both still kind of drunk and it didn’t mean anything. “

Pete’s eyes fly to Patrick’s face, who’s not looking at him but instead looking down at his laptop without seeming to see anything. He takes a breath to reply, but Patrick stops him.

„Don’t. “ He closes his eyes and Pete’s catches something like pain flashing across his friend’s face. „Please don’t. “

_Don’t say anything. Don’t acknowledge that it did. Even though we both know that it did._

Pete can hear the words clear in the air, even though neither of them says them out loud.

Pete realizes that it should shock him. The knowledge that Patrick knows. That Patrick understands and that he might even in some capacity feel the same fucked up thing that’s been dancing on Pete’s peripheral vision for the last 16 years. Hidden in the shadows so deeply that most of the time, Pete had mistaken it for something far less dangerous.

“I love you,” Pete whispers into the space between them. He’s said it countless times, felt it more often than that. But never quite like this. Never this all-encompassing; a friend, a brother, an almost-lover wrapped all into one.

Pete feels sick in his stomach now, and he’s lightheaded, on the verge of a panic attack.

“I know,” Patrick whispers back.

Pete’s still looking at him and Patrick’s still decidedly not looking back but Pete’s barely felt his world so small and tight and so filled up with just the two of them ever before.

“You know I,” Patrick winces,” I know I’m not the smartest guy and I don’t always get it or whatever but I do read your lyrics, Pete. I’m the one who pieces them together.”

_I read your love letters to me and put them into songs for the whole world to hear._

The panic doesn’t come. Breathing hurts, like he’s trying to pull air out of an empty balloon, but nothing more happens. He’s staying on the edge, being kept there by Patrick’s words and his own realization that it’s true, it’s been true for the last years and Pete hadn’t even known. Hadn’t allowed his thoughts to fully go there while his subconscious mind had presented his love on a silver platter for everyone to see.

An odd, paralyzing calmness washes over him. He wonders who else had caught on, had understood what he himself didn’t see. Do Andy and Joe know? Probably. Does Meagan? Elisa?

“It doesn’t change anything,” Patrick goes on and he covers his face with his hands, rubbing his eyes.

“I know.”

And Pete does know. He has a family waiting for him at home he would lay down his life for and so does Patrick. This, them, has nothing to with anyone else, does not touch anyone else.

_But you where there first_ , Pete wants to say. Now that he can say it, now that he knows.

But he doesn’t speak the words. He doesn’t feel like adding to the wound that is them, their feelings for each other.

That night four days ago and this one; Pete finally realizes what had happened. Patrick and he had finally peeled away the curtains, had exposed their most vulnerable spot to each other, their Achilles heel, and then they’d gotten a nail gun and started shooting at it.

“I’m sorry.” Pete watches Patrick’s bitter smile underneath his hand and it breaks his heart.

“Not your fault.” With that Patrick finally turns, finally meets Pete’s eyes with his own. They’re filled with sorrow and love and pain and resignation all at the same time. He smiles that kind of smile that is more pain than anything, that can easily turn into tears in a matter of seconds.

Another nail hits Pete right in his chest.

They don’t speak after that. After a while, Pete’s eyes fall closed, the night tugging at him, overpowering his restless mind. Patrick turns back to his computer, finally picks up wherever he had left off, and the sound of clicking and typing lulls Pete slowly into sleep.

He’s almost gone when he hears Patrick say another thing and he’s not sure if he is even meant to hear it.

“If we don’t ever do this again, I get to have my family and I get to have you in my life. And the way I love you is nobody’s business but my own. That’s enough for me. That’s more than I could ever wish for. So please, Pete, please let it be enough for you too.”

Pete wakes up once during the night, the sun already rising, and he finds himself under the covers, warm and comfortable, with Patrick sleeping peacefully next to him and Patrick’s words echoing in his ears.

It’s in that moment that he finds himself wishing for the same.


End file.
